"RAPED WOMEN BETTER REMAIN SILENT", SAYS CLERIC

If you are a woman who gets raped by a man and you cannot produce a witnesses to support your accusation against him, you shouldn't file an FIR instead you better keep your mouth shut. No, this is not what I stand by. This hilarious, offensive, sexist, morally-disturbing, intellectually-devastating and completely disgusting statement was made by an Islamic cleric in 2011 CE on pubic television. This cleric was none other than JI's former amir Syed Munawar Hasan. He has just passed away today on June 26, 2020 CE. May God rest his soul! But he has been the center of bitter controversies due to similar outrageous statements regarding Pakistan Army and little children killed by terrorists. In the country where women get raped by judges in private chambers (it happened recently), sisters get raped by the family of the person killed by their siblings, male students get raped by the qari who is supposed to be teaching them the scripture and even little girls (who wear no revealing clothes) aren't spared the lust of a common townsman, a cleric issuing such pro-rape statements is quite baffling. Islam certainly doesn't protect a rapist from getting caught, prosecuted and punished. But, before I show you how Prophet Muhammad used to help rape victims and punish these disgusting rapists, I would like to talk about exactly what S. Munawar Hasan said in his nine years old interview.

There aren't many samples of this famous interview available online except for one I found on YouTube. There are numerous articles about it though where opponents have slammed Hasan for discouraging a rape victim from reporting the rape if she doesn't have witnesses to prove the rape has happened (provided that most rapists don't rape women in the presence of company). You can read these pieces from Dawn, Tribune, Let Us Build Pakistan, Human Rights Services and Pakistan Press Foundation. The YouTube video linked to some of these blogs/articles is expired so I am not just giving you the link but also uploading the entire original video here. You watch the YouTube video by clicking here and press the play button down there.

Here I take the liberty to produce the discussion that occurred between the anchorperson and Munawar Hasan during the first portion of the interview, translated to and transcribed in English, for the sake of the easiness of my Western readers. I have copied these words from the above-mentioned websites. But let me give you a little background information regarding the matter under discussion. President Zia introduced Hudud Ordinance in 1979 CE which required women to produce witnesses to prove rape and failure to do so would result in the imprisonment of the rape victims. In 2006 CE, President Musharraf replaced it with Women's Protection Bill which proposed using forensic science to prove rape and decriminalize imprisonment of women with such accusations. Now, let's move to the matter at hand.

Anchor: You guys supported Hudud Ordinance. Why did you vehemently oppose the women protection act?

Munawar Hasan: Women protection act was not aimed at protecting women instead it was meant to promote freedom of sex, vulgarity and obscenity in the country.

Anchor: What is the basis of your allegations? 

Munawar Hasan: On the basis of which we opposed the act.

Anchor: The fundamental purpose of the women protection act was to provide women with the right to file cases on the basis of circumstantial and forensic evidence, making convictions of rape easier. Where is the obscenity in that? 

Munawar Hasan:  This bill has been part of law for years. How has that affected the rights of women in Pakistan? What is the one issue that can be pointed out as a success of this law?

Anchor: One glaringly obvious problem with the Hudud law was the need to present four witnesses in order to convict a rapist, something that is in the text of Quran and is well-respected by all Muslims. But failure to do so resulted in the arrest of the woman on charges of inability to prove the rape and confession to adultery. That was the main issue.

Munawar Hasan: What is the problem in that? That actually resolves the matter.

Anchor: The problem is this, sir, that, according to the 2003 national commission status of women report, 80% women were forced to languish in jails because of inability to produce witnesses of their rape.

Munawar Hasan: The collective objective of Islam is to uproot such acts from the society. No one can be shameless enough to commit such an act in the presence of four people, making it impossible to prove such acts. Of course, four witnesses can only be made if such an act is performed on public property. Therefore, the whole idea of Islam is to discourage bringing such acts into public light. Discouraging it to the extent that the act is never quoted. If such a crime occurs and, since there are no witnesses, then both men and women are supposed to keep it under wraps and not discuss it in public. Just like in the time of the Prophet...

Anchor: Sir, are you suggesting that a woman should stay silent after she is raped? That she should not report the crime?

Munawar Hasan: I am saying she should keep quite if she has no witnesses. If she has witnesses then she should present them. 

Anchor: What kind of an argument is that? A woman is raped and she has to look for witnesses to prove the crime?

Munawar Hasan: Argue with the Quran and not me.

Anchor: I am not questioning the Quran. I am questioning your argument.

Munawar Hasan was also condemned in 2013 CE when he refused to label Pakistani soldiers who are killed by the Taliban as shuhada (martyrs). He argued that a Pakistani soldier who had fought the American war and murdered his own Muslim brethren was not a martyr. Instead, Hasan believed that a Taliban warrior was a martyr because apparently he fought against kuffar. So, he called Hakimullah Mehsud a shahid (martyr) for he was killed in a drone attack. Similarly, JUI-F leader Fazlur Rehman was slammed for saying: Even if a dog is killed in a drone attack, I will also call it a martyr. Hasan also seemingly defended the massacre of schoolchildren in APS Attack Peshawar (2016) by arguing: The Taliban too lost their children so they are killing yours. On the other hand, the khatib of Lal Masjid (Islamabad) favored the terrorists who had killed the schoolchildren by refusing to condemn the attack, a grave error for which he apologized in the future. Refusal to condemn the terrorist activities of the fellow warriors from Taliban is a behavior Hasan has displayed multiple times. I remember how anchorperson Shahzeb Khanzada pressed Hasan to condemn terror attacks (in a 2012 interview), a demand which he continued  to ignore. He even accused SK of being a paid CIA agent. 

Now let me show you briefly how Prophet Muhammad used to punish rapists. This hadith can be found in the Jami of Tirmidhi, in the chapter regarding a woman who is forced to commit adultery by a man. Tirmidhi believes this hadith is hasan gharib sahih. Albani grades it to be hasan. 

Narrated Alqamah b. Wa'il al-Kindi from his father who said: "A woman went out during the time of the Prophet (ﷺ) to offer her prayers but she was caught by a man and he had relations with her. So, she screamed and he left. Then a man came across her and she said: That man has done this and that to me. Then she came across a group of Emigrants (muhajirin) and she said: That man did this and that to me. They went to get the man she thought had relations with her and they brought him to her. She said: Yes, that's him. So, they brought him to the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) and when he ordered that he be stoned, the man who had relations with her (stood up and) said: O Messenger of Allah! I am the one who had relations with her. So, he said to her: Go! For Allah has forgiven you. Then he said some nice words to the man (who was falsely accused). And he said about the man who had relations with her: Stone him. Then he said: He has repented a repentance that, if the inhabitants of Medina had repented with, it would have been accepted from them."

Thus, Islam secures the right of women to avenge her rape by making the government punish her rapist. I don't know what these mullahs have against forensic science. Just like Mufti Muneeb who doesn't want to involve scientific procedures to predict the sighting of the moon and insists on observing the moon with naked eye, just like they used to do in the olden days. I mean the Prophet never used fork or spoon to eat. Will you stop using vehicles and ride camels instead because of the Prophet? They are not doing what Islam makes obligatory and doing what has no basis in Islam. May Allah guise these mullahs!